'n Analise van die kultuurelemente in kreatiewe toerisme : 'n gevallestudie van die Afrikanerkultuur

Abstract

In South Africa, cultural attractions often present cultural elements in a traditional manner, where the cultural experience is not the main focus. However, there is an increasing need worldwide, including with Afrikaner cultural attractions, to offer new interpretation opportunities that could in actual fact offer a creative cultural experience. The purpose of this study was to determine which Afrikaner cultural elements should be presented to tourists and how this should be done regarding creative principles. For this purpose four aims were set, namely to study existing literature regarding the cultural tourist, cultural elements, the cultural experience, creative cultural tourism and Afrikaner culture; to execute a desktop study about existing creative cultural attractions and to compile a database that could be utilised to investigate the various ways in which cultural elements could be applied in a creative cultural tourism context; to perform an empirical analysis to determine which cultural elements should be presented at an Afrikaner cultural attraction in South Africa with regard to the five creative principles: active participation, interaction, authenticity, a learning experience and a multi-thematic approach, and to formulate conclusions and make recommendations about the successful presentation of cultural elements at a creative Afrikaner cultural attraction. The empirical study consisted of an exploratory research design and was executed by following the qualitative method, involving 15 research participants, who were followers of six Afrikaner cultural attractions on Facebook websites respectively. The researcher designed an invitation for research participants and distributed it on the Facebook pages of Afrikaner cultural attractions, after which participants could email the researcher. A semi-structured interview schedule was used to put questions to the research participants, which they could react to as comprehensively as possible. The interview schedule comprised mainly open-ended questions pertaining to demographic information, Afrikaner cultural elements and creative principles of tourism. The results obtained were captured via voice recordings, transcribed into Word and categorised in themes and sub-themes according to Creswell’s six steps of data analysis. The results indicated that the research participants’ favourite Afrikaner cultural attractions offer more “live” Afrikaner culture. The most important Afrikaner cultural elements are: history, language, music and dance, food, and the traditional lifestyle. These cultural elements have to be presented creatively by incorporating the following five creative principles: active participation, interaction, a learning experience, authenticity and a multi-thematic approach. On the whole the results confirmed that cultural tourists desire a creative presentation of Afrikaner cultural elements and that these elements, as well as the creative principles, should be integrated to offer a positive cultural experience. The recommendations of the study are aimed at marketers and managers of existing or prospective Afrikaner cultural attractions, academics and the general public, with a focus on Afrikaner cultural tourism. The most important recommendations include

that creative marketing should be used to attract creative tourists, and that a creative Afrikaner cultural experience should be offered at a one-stop destination, or through an Afrikaner cultural tour.